He poised his weapon, took deadly aim, and lunged! Never was quiet of a summer morning broken more suddenly and startlingly.

A yell so loud, so wild, so blood-curdling, ascended from within the farm-house, that even nature seemed to shiver for a moment.
Then came the rush of feet and the clamor of many voices.

Out of doors ran all the household, the father included, so appalling had been Alf's cry of apparently mortal agony, to learn the source of all the trouble.
There was nothing to be seen.

Not a living being was in sight.

It dawned upon the elders gradually that nothing very serious had occurred, and the father and the females of the household went in to breakfast, the exercises of the morning not being now renewed, while Alf and his brother scoured the wood.